I am not, technically a boomer, because the War was still going on when I came into being in New York City. I agree with the Transistor radio — it was my first experience with subversion — and the bike didn’t have to have a banana seat with a sissy bar; the bicycle for me (when we had moved to the suburbs) was my escape and exploration vehicle. It was a 3-speed English Raleigh bike that I convinced my parents I had to have to negotiate the hills and valleys of lower Westchester County on my way to and from school, and on one or more of the paper routes I had. That machine defined my tween and teen years. That is, until I got my first car.

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